Haunt Insurance And Security

So you have a haunt and are now up and running and everything is going great. This is what we all are working to reach but we need to prepare for the unexpected. With a haunt comes some level of risk. There are many things that could go wrong but may never happen but if one did wouldn’t it be nice to be prepared. For instance say someone falls in your haunt and injures themselves or maybe one of your actors gets assaulted. Well not only will that slow business for the night but then you have to deal with paramedics or police or both along with all the paperwork for someone getting injured then what about the medical costs to the person or a lawsuit against you. That is where proper security and insurance come into play.

Security is not just to ensure you have safe parking and that no one will break in and destroy your haunt. It provides a means to control rowdy customers, fights, and protect your haunt in off hours. Not only this but often times haunt security is also basic haunt operations because many locations now have a central control room with feeds from cameras throughout the haunt so they can control animatronics at the right moment and keep track of the flow of traffic through the haunt. However what if someone assaults an actor or breaks something then when you confront them they say I did not do that or he hit me first. Well guess what buddy your in for a surprise since all you have to do is so your security staff which is usually off duty police anyway if you played your cards right the video and poof there is the rowdy customer assaulting your actor or breaking your several thousand dollar prop.

Having security staff on top of the cameras is great since they can patrol parking areas and lines and keep things from getting out of control and act as a deterrent against any number of things that could arise if they were not there such as car break-ins. Now if you work it you can usually get off duty police to come run your security staff which is awesome since they are all ready trained and are actually the police. Now you can usually try to work some deals out like free tickets and partial pay and stuff but even if you have to pay them full wage for the evening its worth it in the case something does go down and a off duty cop calling in for help will get you much faster medical, fire or security backup than you or a staff member calling 911.

Onto the insurance. So as we just discussed there are many things that could potentially go wrong but rarely do but I have heard of haunts having staff members being assaulted on the first night and others being rained out and not being able to open. Insurance covers all of this if you workout the right policy. Umbrella insurance can get you coverage for weather issues and cover you if you get shut down for the rain or just do not pull a full nights profits. It really is kind of nice to know that if a storm rolls through and you do not get the traffic you normally would that you will still get paid by the insurance for that loss of business. Now do not forget the other insurance and check into what the cost will be for extra coverage to cover the volunteer actors and staff in case of a medical incident. This may only be a few hundred dollars more and if something does happen you can count on it costing more since an ambulance ride will run you over a thousand on average.

Security cameras, security staff and insurance are your bad weather and bad situation safety net. Make sure you have these items in place if you plan to stay in business long term because anything can happen and these few little things can keep you in business and save you a whole lot of money.